


the syntax of things

by revolutionnaire



Category: Football RPF
Genre: FC Chelsea, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-14
Updated: 2007-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 21:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionnaire/pseuds/revolutionnaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an entirely fictional account of true events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the syntax of things

Jose was five when a lorry veered off the road in front of his house and ploughed straight through the wall and into his living room, destroying half of it along with the three-seater couch, the old framed photograph of his parents that was faded and peeling in one corner, and his favourite toy train.

Miraculously (his parents called it an act of God) the only casualties had been the crates of fresh tomatoes the lorry had been carrying. The driver hopped out of his lorry, only slightly dazed and completely unharmed, in a fluster of windmilling arms and frantic apologies interjected with rapidly muttered curses as they stared at the lorry stranded in the middle of their house among the debris and dust of what used to be the living room.

He doesn't remember the event at all, actually. He was too young at the time, and his memory only really began when he was six and a half; his very first real memory being the abstract way his mother's skirts had looked as they flowed and pirouetted around her legs while he watched her prepare dinner from his secret fortress under the kitchen table. It's not like he didn't remember anything else-- memories around that age tended to blur into one another, and he was never sure if a certain memory happened when he was six or eight or seven. One memory stands out however, and he remembers exactly when it happened.

1.20 p.m, December 25, 1972. Christmas lunch. The phone had rung just as his father was about to finish pouring himself a glass of Moscatel wine. His father had excused himself with a smile and disappeared into the living room. For a few minutes there was hushed conversation, then silence. When he came back, his face was drawn, the same smile he had left the room with still stretched tight across his face, only it seemed different somehow. He sat back down and took a sip of his wine, resumed eating his bowl of caldeirada, and the lunch had continued like normal. Jose only found out the next day that his father had been sacked.

No, he really doesn't remember the lorry incident, but for many years afterward, the telltale signs that his parents, for some obscure reason, never got around to fixing - skid marks on the road, tyre treads embedded deep into the grass in the garden, the crack in the pavement, the blue zinc sheet that covered the lorry-sized hole in the living room wall - remained, and served as little reminders of the accident (to remind him that the accident did happen) until they moved out, finally, when Jose was twelve.

Didier knows all this because Jose told him, randomly and quite out of the blue, when they were driving to lunch after practice one day. Jose was always like that-- full of stories and little anecdotes that left Didier wishing he too could, for once, tell interesting stories as well, that he was maybe just two thirds more eloquent than he really was, that he could do more than just sit there dumbly silent after one of Jose's stories. He never knew whether to laugh at Jose's tripping down the last flight of stairs, to apologize for his grandfather's death, to feel sad or happy about Jose's failed footballing career, to laugh at Jose's excuse for his latest haircut. 

He wonders if Jose ever picks up on his awkward silences, and hopes to hell that he doesn't. The last thing he wants is for Jose to stop telling him these stories.

 

There was a time when Jose did stop (though it had nothing to do with Didier's ineloquence, not at all), and Didier remembers long unbearable afternoons when the mundane sounds of life in London (birds twittering angrily, the hiss and spatter of rain as it hit the pavement, brakes squealing, tyres skidding, and worst of all, the sound of conversation between people who were not himself and Jose) filled the empty vacuum where Jose's voice should have been.

It had been a bad time for Jose and Didier.

A slip of the tongue during an interview in a language he still did not really understand, a horrible misinterpretation and the ensuing media hysteria, and Didier was, as he was repeatedly told, royally fucked. Home games became worse than away games, fans became enemies, cheers became taunts. All in all, there was no way he could bear it any more.

"I cannot stay here," he'd (with a pained expression, he imagines) told Jose in Stamford Bridge's locker room after they'd beaten Tottenham in a game which Didier had neither started nor scored in. The rest of the players had left long before, Jose staying back once he caught the look Didier had thrown at him as the team sung and joked and celebrated in the tunnel with voices that drowned out the clacking of metal studs against the tiled floor.

Jose had only shrugged then and walked away.

 

He thinks a lot about it, still. About his little war with Jose. He recalls, with unsettling clarity, Jose's words spoken not to him but to journalists with eager eyes and hungry spiral-bound ruled reporter notebooks with 192 empty pages nine by fourteen centimetres in size.

"They have to enjoy playing for me and Chelsea but they don’t have to be in love with me."

Didier cringes and imagines impassive eyes, a nonchalant flick of the wrist, and fingers that drummed impatiently against the unnaturally smooth wood of the table as he awaited the next question, eager to get the interview over with so he could go home to be with his family.

 

There are times in life you have to swallow your pride, Jose knows, no matter how tough it seems. So he'd swallowed his pride - a huge indigestible lump of of it - for Didier.

"Stay," he'd told him. "I brought you here."

It was one of the rare occasions where Jose spoke to him in French. Didier always wondered (but never questioned) why they never conversed in French, considering Jose was far more fluent in French than Didier was in English. Maybe it was because it gave them a sense of equality, speaking in a language that was neither of their mother tongues. He doesn't care, really. It's one of Jose's quirks and Didier knows that these quirks - whether they were endearing or annoying - are the things that shape Jose's life and without them, Jose wouldn't be Jose.

"I know. I came for you."

"So stay for me."

Jose's eyes, in those few seconds, held an earnestness Didier had never seen before. He realised then that it was not fair for him to leave now, to leave Jose-- Jose who'd wanted him when he was still a nobody, Jose who'd chosen him above all the others, Jose who'd taken him aside in the changing rooms before the quarterfinals of the Champions League and told him he was untouchable, Jose who had never, not even for a single second, lost faith in him.

 

It is not Didier's first memory, neither is it one that stands out whenever he thinks of Jose. It is hardly even a defining memory in the myriad of memories that make up his life, but it is his favourite one.

He remembers getting up to sneak out of Jose's hotel room in the middle of the night. He remembers shivering as he sat up in bed to pull on his clothes (cheap shorts and a white t-shirt), a hand suddenly reaching out just as he stood up to grab him by the wrist and tug him back onto the bed, and the feel of arms wrapping themselves slowly around his waist and a kiss pressed against the space just below his shoulder blade.

It's a memory that comes to him unbidden, at any random time of the day (during meals, in the trudge back to the locker room at half time of a game, just before he falls asleep). It doesn't matter really, that he doesn't know when or where the memory will suddenly pop into his mind-- Didier just knows that he always smiles when it does.

He's not even entirely sure if Jose had been awake during the brief exchange. Not once did Didier turn around to look at him; not when it happened, and not in the numerous times he's tried to reconstruct the memory in his head. In fact, this memory is a memory that he does not see as much as he feels. His other memories are usually rich with sounds and vibrant colours and little gritty details, but not this one. He sees nothing but pitch darkness save for the hint of light tiptoeing hesitantly in from the crack under the room door, hears nothing but the murmured sleep-slurred "stay" almost smothered by the rustling of sheets. But what he feels-- he feels the brush of expensive cotton bedsheets across his thighs as he kicks them off gently and carefully, he feels the almost immediate evaporation of heat as the cold greedily sucks up the little remnants of warmth from his body, he feels the pleasantly adhesive press of Jose's balmy skin against his, and he thinks he feels enough love to last him a lifetime.

 

Didier pushes his way through a suffocating swarm of people; sweaty limbs and damp shirts and hoarse yells of congratulations that resound all around him like the hearty slaps and congratulatory taps on the shoulder that rain down on him from every direction. He brushes off the well wishes, shoulders past reveling team mates. His goal had carried them to victory against Manchester United in the FA Cup Final, and now the cameras trail him, Chelsea's hero as usual, all the way into the tunnel but he doesn't care.

He breaks into a run, eyes looking around wildly until he finds what he is looking for. Nobody else had noticed, every one too busy celebrating their win, but through the corner of his eye, Didier had caught sight of Jose leaving the pitch quietly, a tiny speck almost drowned in an ocean of people as he made a bee line for the quiet of the tunnel.

Didier finds Jose leaning against the wall, talking on his mobile phone to who Didier knows must be his family. The light overhead makes the simple silver band on his left ring finger glint, throwing glaring flashes of light into Didier's eyes and Didier has to stop for a moment.

(Somewhere in his mind, another memory leaps to life. Two years, two months, and twenty-three days ago-- it is Didier and Jose's first season at Chelsea, and they have beaten Liverpool to win the Carling Cup.

Millenium Stadium explodes in a sea of blue as the final whistle is blown and the fans, already on their feet and celebrating since ten minutes ago, roar in delight. It fills Didier's ears; the best sound in the world. He breaks free from his teammates' embrace, vaguely hears JT shout out where the hell are you going? in mid-jump, but Didier waves him off, mutters wait, wait.

The sound of victory fades a bit, like how going underwater muffles the sounds of the things above, as Didier walks to the changing rooms. His eyes search and find.

Jose is sitting on the bench, eyes fixed on the television screen in the corner of the room, black scarf lying discarded next to him. The sight of it distresses Didier somewhat, causes a painful twinge in his chest and makes his stomach feel like dead weight; it's Jose's first trophy with Chelsea, he should not look so sad.

Jose, is all he says as he pads tentatively towards the man on the bench. Jose turns to look at him. Not sure of what to do, Didier picks up the scarf and loops it around Jose's neck, and the fingers that brush Jose's throat are only slightly shaky as he knots it beneath Jose's collar. Wordlessly, he takes Jose's hand and tugs, persistently, until Jose stands up. Let's go, Didier says, and puts his arm around Jose's waist.

There's a a soft brush of lips, scratch of stubble and lingering rush of hot breath against Didier's cheek, and the unmistakable, achingly familiar smell of Jose's cologne fills his nose, travels up to his brain and for a second, Didier cannot see.

He only hears Jose's voice, soft and hoarse in his ears.)

Jose looks up now and sees Didier staring at him, breathing hard and looking like anything but a winner of the FA cup. Jose doesn't stop talking, but he beckons Didier over with a little nod and a hint of a smile.

"Thank you," Didier whispers hoarsely, a large looming figure that blocks the light and throws a shadow across Jose's face.

 

They survive months of tumultuous uncertainty and stepped-on feelings, and then they go to lunch again. Jose looks at what must be - at the most - three inches of space between the top of Didier's head and the roof of his car. "Didier," he says, in all seriousness from the passenger seat of Didier's blue fifty-five inch tall Mini Cooper. "You think this car is big enough for you?" he reaches up to indicate the miserable headroom and his hand only just fits into the three-inch space.

Didier laughs. (He always laughed so easily, Jose noticed.) "Yes, yes. I don't need a big car." He turns his head to smile at Jose, and the slight movement pins Jose's hand to the roof of the car.

He looks at Didier, deadpan. "No, you don't need a big car," he says, unlodging his hand and running it down the back of Didier's head and through his hair before bringing it to rest on Didier's neck. 

 

They lose the day after Didier signs his new contract. 

(1-2 to Tottenham, first loss in thirty three League games, six bookings, their own captain sent off, conceding an early lead. Didier holds his head in his hands long after the game ends, until Jose taps his shoulder and tells him that the bus has arrived.

Didier is quiet on the ride home, even when Jose comes to sit next to him. He looks as though he is asleep, with his eyes closed and his head occasionally bumping against the glass window, but Jose can tell immediately that he isn't really. Jose slips his hand under Didier's jacket on the seat, finds Didier's hand, and knots their fingers together without saying a word. There's pressure as Didier squeezes back and Jose can feel Didier's steady heartbeat in his fingers.)

Two weeks later, Didier scores a hat trick against Watford and they celebrate their second consecutive 4-0 win.

"They love you now," Jose tells him.

Didier's smile is an expanse of white teeth stretching from ear to ear that leaves indents in his cheeks. He needs this, more than anything else. Didier needs to be loved, admired, praised-- anything but hated. He is like a puppy, Jose often thinks. A puppy that needed to be scratched behind the ear every once in a while, but loved rather unconditionally.

"And you?" he asks.

Jose shrugs. "Ask them."

"No. Do you love me?"

Jose does not balk, or look at Didier with widened how-dare-you eyes, or mutter some sarcastic remark like Didier expects him to. Instead, he fidgets a little, his eyes flicker away momentarily before they settle for the space between Didier's eyes, and his fingers twitch, as fingers were always apt to do when they were suddenly stripped of any trivial tasks.

"Yes," he says finally.


End file.
